ax_main | Liberation (Team 1) | TJ, Jeanne-Marie, Trowa, Inu-Yasha, Clarice, Clint, Molly, and Caleb

X-Force invades a Right facility on an island off the coast of Maine, liberating the three mutants being held there.

TJ wasn't the least bit used to leading a team, especially not after two years spent following Clarice, for the most part. Good thing they had been training so much. But when it was time, the same thing happened as years ago, when Scott had led the Brotherhood into an attack and the kids had all been looking to her for guidance.

This time, the people looking to her for leadership had been told to, but it didn't matter. With her back to the wall, she did what it took. That was what X-Men did, as far as she was concerned.

Nanashi had handled basic recon, and then it had been Nocturne's turn. Possessing one of the few guards had been easy enough, and thanks to Nanashi's intel, she'd been able to get in without trouble, leaving the other three to handle the rest of the outside guards. Non-lethally, if possible. Possession put her temporarily out of comms reach, but it would be worth it for the intel she'd be able to glean, hopefully.

It didn't take long to find the mutant captives, all together in the cafeteria. A brief conversation with another one of the guards, an easy lie about what she (he) was doing here, and she was on her way back out of the room. She found a supply closet and stepped out of the guard, letting him fall to the floor, unconscious. He wouldn't be waking up any time soon, so she didn't bother restraining him, and used her ear piece to get in touch with the rest of the team.

"They're in the cafeteria," she whispered to them. "First floor, north side, dead center. Three mutant kids. Guards are patrolling the halls, take them down as you go. I'll get started here, so make it fast." That last one was especially aimed at Aurora, who could make it to the cafeteria in a heartbeat if taking care of the other guards was taking too long.

Jeanne-Marie nodded, adjusting her sleeves and picking at her ponytail just to vent some nervous energy. Her heartbeat was so loud; this was real, for the first time, she was going to do it. Going to help other mutants, help other people with her gifts.

Just to make sure, she repeated, "I'll follow as quickly as possible and clear the way for the others." She had plenty of zip ties in her pouch.

"Understood," Trowa murmured into his comm. A moment later he was moving, swift and silent, through the access point TJ had identified earlier. He still felt that trying to use non-lethal methods against the guards was a waste of time, but orders were orders.

The first of the outside patrolling guards went down choking on a fist to the throat.

One silver ear flicked unhappily on top of Inu-yasha's head, but the custom earpiece stayed in place. "Yeah, yeah," he said, giving another rough punch to the struggling guard under him. He quickly applied the zip tie restraints to the dazed man, then followed the others inside, putting on a burst of speed and leap to close the distance quickly. "On my way."

Satisfied that they were on their way, TJ slipped back into the hallway, towards the cafeteria, bare feet silent on the linoleum floor. When she rounded the corner to the door leading in and guarded by two men, she let out two hex bolts at their heads, knocking them out in one fell swoop. She closed the distance between them just in time to catch one before he fell to the floor, but the other one went down too quickly and hit the floor with a small thud.

Caleb looked up as Simons, who had been on perimeter duty tonight, come into the cafeteria, talked to Coughlin and then left again. His brow furrowed briefly at it before he returned to staring blankly at the table, only half-listening to Molly’s story. In the two days since Molly had pulled his vanishing act, their barely cobbled together escape plan had fallen apart. Had it been that alone, they would have been alright. Hell, they might have even been able to still make a break for it. But, the stolen keycard had been found in Clint’s room too, and they had all paid dearly for it. Some in flesh, if the fresh bruises on Clint and Molly were to tell their story, and others…, watching any chance they had of getting out of this place slowly slip through their fingers.

All three of them were under even closer scrutiny by the guards now. Wherever Caleb, Molly, or Clint went, one followed and, unless they were training or sleeping, they were corralled like cattle in the cafeteria. Even now, stuck in this windowless room masquerading as a dining hall, they were surrounded—Two guards by each door, and one making slow rounds, a threatening hand on his menacing-looking rifle. It was a regular party.

To be fair, Molly wasn't particularly listening to his own story either. It was a low, quiet babble that trailed off in fits and starts every so often, considering that Molly was playing the part of being properly cowed by the repercussions of his 'escape attempt'. Why they thought a beating would make him less likely to try again he wasn't sure, but at least the swelling had gone down, and the marks had settled into a near-black against his already purple skin.

But that particular act didn't take much in the way of concentration, and the flicker in Caleb's expression caught his attention fast. It wasn't like he had anything else to focus on. A brief glance at the guards to make sure they were paying as much attention as they usually did, and he carefully turned an embellishing gesture into one of the signs he definitely knew how to make.

What?

Across the table, the blond boy next to Caleb might have been a little bruised, but a lifetime of bruises made Clint a practiced punching bag. He knew how to take them, and how to live with them afterwards. Mostly, he just found himself exhausted after another round of tests, little bandaids sticking to the hairs of his skin up and down his arms. He had been half falling asleep at the table until the gesture swept out of the corner of his gaze and he looked up, realizing that something was actually being said rather than just a ramble. Blinking once in confusion, he glanced at Caleb.

Hand kept low and close to him, Caleb signed, Simons was here. He’s not supposed to be here.

The thud of the guard's body on the ground had gotten the attention of the two guarding the cafeteria door from the inside. TJ only just had time to flatten herself against one half of the door when the other one opened, and she hex-bolted the guard looking in right in the head, before shoving the other door open into his colleague, dazing him enough that another hex bolt was easy to shoot at him, too. Nocturne, four, guards, zero.

The blue-furred, yellow-eyed mutant dressed in brown leather that covered the bare minimum grinned at the room at large. "Hey, boys." And then she launched herself into action again, hex-bolts flying as she ducked between two tables for cover.

Jeanne-Marie darted past Trowa and Inu-Yasha--who were doing just fine, and slammed into the last guard in the hallway. He gave an "oof" and hit the wall, eyes closing. As he slid downward, Jeanne-Marie caught him just enough to keep him from breaking open his face, let him land on his belly, and zip-tied his hands behind his back. "Hallway clear once Nanashi and Hanyou reach me," she said quietly into her comm.

"No signs of any other guards scrambling." Trowa's voice was assured and level across the commlink. "From what I can hear, it's all quiet here and down the next few corridors. I don't think anyone's noticed we're here yet." He was at Jeanne-Marie's side seconds later.

“Won’t take ‘em long to figure it out,” Inu-yasha muttered, ears flicking and catching the sounds of some commotion ahead of them - presumably Nocturne going to work. With one swift leap he passed the others and threw the door open, ditching stealth in favor of getting to the fight.

"They've figured it out!" TJ assured them through her comm, even as bullets lodged themselves in the tables on either side of her.

Caleb’s shock at seeing a half-naked blue girl come barreling into the cafeteria was short-lived as the bullets started to fly. He reflexively grabbed Clint and dragged him along as he ducked behind an upturned table. Oh, God, oh, God, he was going to die. He shielded his head with his arms, quietly panicking. A spray of bullets sent shards of the cheap, plastic dining table flying.

From the not-so-relative-safety of his arm barrier, Caleb spotted a shape moving toward them. His heart stopped as the shape registered as Brauer, his rifle at the ready. Letting out a strangled sound, he yanked on Clint’s shirt sleeve.

It was Clint's worst nightmare. Six months earlier, he would have been able to be out there, helping to take out guards, using his training to its full benefit. Now, with his eyesight diminished and a third of his weight gone, not to mention the fact that he couldn't hear a damn thing, he was practically helpless. It wasn't a good feeling, not understanding the chaos around them, and having Caleb of all people keeping him from being shot. He'd only caught a glimpse of the blue girl before he'd been hauled behind the table. He didn't know her - that was for sure - but he assumed she was from another part of the facility that he'd never seen before. And here he'd thought it was just the three of them.

Why the fuck she was breaking into the cafeteria was beyond him. Maybe she'd gone bonkers.

Then Caleb was tugging on his sleeve and Clint looked up just in time to see Brauer coming at them with his safety off. That was all the incentive he needed. He grabbed one of the trays that had fallen onto the ground and flung it forcefully at the man, like a great big honkin' boomerang. (Respect the boomerang.) The tray didn't come back, of course, but it hit Brauer's throat with such force that the guy went down...and stayed down, and Clint scrambled to grab the rifle, just in case. Respect the boomerang, but bullets worked too.

Molly had barely had time to react to the doors flying open before everything went to hell, and then his immediate concern was scrambling out of the way. From extremely dubious safety behind another overturned table, he caught sight of Brauer going down and a flash of a blue girl being pinned down by gunfire. But spotting Coughlin starting to turn his own rifle towards Clint and Caleb was all it took to spur him into action.

Eyes fixed on the bastard, Molly bit down hard on the meat of his palm, then extended the hand once he was sure he'd broken the skin. "We will have our revenge," he hissed in a voice that was almost inhuman, and smirked as the man immediately dropped the gun in favor of clutching at his head in agony.

"Nice psi-trick, Purple!" TJ shouted over at him, and knocked the affected guard out with a well-aimed hex bolt. That gave her a nice little opening to run at a couple of other guards, as long as she kept low (easily done for someone with her physiology). She leaped up over the table in her way, hex-bolting them without good enough accuracy to knock them out instantly, which meant a spot of close combat.

Jeanne-Marie, meanwhile, zipped into the cafeteria silently. After a split-second assessment (ah, there were the captives!), she saw a rifle pointed TJ's way even as she vaulted the table. With a grim look on her face, Jeanne-Marie rushed to stand before the guard, grabbed the gun and jerked, superspeed, then snapped her fingers in front of his face. Bright, white light exploded from her finger tips, and the guard cried out, forgetting all about his gun in favor of covering his eyes.

So she whacked him with the butt of his own rifle, and he hit the ground like a sack of flour.

Inu-yasha burst in half a second behind Jeanne-Marie, and his attention snapped immediately toward the smell of blood - mutant blood - and he leapt toward the source. He was carrying a gun he’d taken off a guard, but he held it in one hand by the barrel, using it like a club to take out the guard who’d been sneaking toward the teens. Before the mans had a chance to process the arrival of the dog-eared boy, the gun connected with his face with a crack, likely his jaw breaking, and Inu-yasha tackled him to the ground to immobilize him. As he did, roughly pinning the guard’s hands behind his back, he scowled up at the captives. This shitty shelter wouldn’t protect them, not really. They had to move.

“Oy! This is a rescue!” he shouted at them. Shit, they didn’t look good. He zipped the guard’s hands in place, glancing up to make sure the girls had a handle on the rest of the room before dodging over to crouch next to the purple one, golden eyes glancing over the three of them. They didn’t exactly look up to a fight. “Can you run?”

"Incoming." Trowa's voice broke in over the comms. "We've got guard reinforcements en route. Two corridors over and closing in fast. We need to move now or make a stand here."

Caleb eyed the dog-eared boy distrustfully even as he translated what he’d said for Clint. He didn’t like this. It was too convenient. What if it was a test?

Indecision warred only briefly in Caleb before he decided that it didn’t matter. If it was a test, the possibility it wasn’t, the possibility of freedom, was worth the beating he’d get for failing.

“If the situation calls for it,” he told the boy wryly.

Clint frowned as Caleb quickly signed a translation of what the white-haired kid had said. He wasn't sure how much he believed it either, considering their recent, and very much failed, escape plan. Still, as far as he could tell, there were at least three other kids there with active powers, and none of them were collared, or even showed any signs of ever having been collared. That had to mean something.

Glancing up, he noted the blue girl and a new brunette handling the remaining guards in the room and getting them, what, tied up? The doors at the south end of the mess hall were opening, probably to send in reinforcements, and Clint fired a warning shot down the hall, forcing the incoming guards to briefly take cover. (Now they knew their sniper had a gun. Let them think on that!) Then he tucked the rifle against his side and gave the white haired kid a nod. If they were running, they needed to run.

Purple? Molly pulled a vaguely offended face, but more people just kept coming, and the entire thing was turning into even more of a mess. Since the bullets seemed to have stopped for the moment, Molly slowly got to his feet, then moved to haul Caleb up after him. Whatever this happened to be, it was clearly their best shot at making something work.

"I hope you've cleared an exit," he called, eyes fixed on the doorway as he stepped out in front of the other two. "And does anyone happen to have a knife?"

"Nanashi, come and join us," TJ said into her comm, and watched as Aurora took out the last guard with admirable efficiency. Speedsters were the best, when they were in control. "Blink, ready for an immediate evac on my location?" She smirked over at Purple, even as she gestured for everyone to join her as she jogged near the door Nanashi would come through - against the wall, to have cover. "We don't need a cleared exit! Everybody gather up." She positioned herself right by the side of the door, ready to shoot hex bolts if needed. "Hanyou, you're in charge of our three guests. Aurora, you and I'll provide cover if needed." For Nanashi, and then for their retreat. "Blink? How about a portal for four, babe?"

Almost as soon as she'd spoken, the characteristic blink! sound accompanied the arrival of the lavender-skinned mutant. TJ grinned at her friend, and pointed at the three captives. "Take those three back with Hanyou?" She gave the cat boy a sharp grin. "You're on chaperone duty. We'll take the scenic route, stop by a computer on our way out."

And before any of the four could react, Clarice and they had blinked out of the cafeteria, leaving Nocturne and Aurora alone as Nanashi joined them. "Come on, this way," TJ gestured for them to follow towards another door. "Let's get Shadowcat something to work with."

Jeanne-Marie, flushed and exhilarated, nodded and grinned, then patted the pocket where she kept a flash drive. "Let's do it."